Generally though for RPG's the core mechanic (source of addictiveness?) is the old grind and reward system. The reward usually being gradual character growth (level up) and various cool items. The rest story, music, graphics, fighting system, etc are just various presentation mediums that help enhance the experience.

Everyone loves a good grind! I know that you need to be conscious of how much grinding you impose on the player however. For instance wow endgame stuff was like some horrible shift at work where you didnt really want to do it but you you kind of wanted the reward at the end.

MUDs and most roguelikes are nonrepresentational. Once you have representational graphics, where what you put on the screen really intends to describe the object, even hardcore mudders will be put off by ugly characters and environments. Maybe not enough to stay away from the game, but they won't ignore it.

I think it's not so much "ugly" graphics that are annoying, it's graphics without a unified style. Roguelikes do have a unified graphical style, and it's much better than grabbing clip art from all over the internet for your graphics.

+1 for grind. Grind is important - it keeps the player on a drip feed of perceived progress. You need to regularly intersperse grind with milestones, and you need to drop random rewards in at random intervals for performing normal grind. "Maybe this treasure chest will have a potion in it? Or... this one? Or... this one? etc"

I'd hazard a guess that a slick UI married to a "why should I bother having to do this at all" mechanic that enables the player to cut out all the tedium of micromanagement is also important. For example - a backpack that only contains a certain amount of loot. This rapidly fills up with worn leather shoes, scraps of cloth, and pieces of worthless glass. Far better that the inventory was effectively infinite, because really, you'd just go and walk back and forth to the loot over and over in order to sell it all for your few gold pieces. That's the wrong way to do grind.

Also it MUST be possible to save and restore at any point, if not necessarily multiple saves. Multiple saves are single-player friendly. I've never really known why the collective designers of NetHack chose to enforce an 80s gaming model in this day and age (permadeath is rubbish, basically. It removes the massive fun of "what if I did this instead next time" play)

I actually like both ends of the spectrum. Permadeath radically changes how you play (although I have to admit dying because of a misclick is really annoying) and it is more "exciting".

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I think it's not so much "ugly" graphics that are annoying, it's graphics without a unified style.

Very much this. Don't take my orginal comment wrong. The "artistic" side of games is much more important that the quality of the programming. But games like RPGs and wargames can get away with low quality art/sound if the mechanic, story-line, etc. are compelling enough. Of course low quality assets will reduce the potential player base.

Thing is: given a choice between two roughly similar games, one with poo graphics, the other with nice modern stuff, which one gets the eyeballs? It's rarely good enough these days to try and "get away" with something when there's so much competition.

I've never really known why the collective designers of NetHack chose to enforce an 80s gaming model in this day and age

Because it was written in the 80's? Fact is, there is a different dynamic to gameplay when you know your decisions are irrevocable, and the people that are into roguelikes prefer it that way. Backing up the save file is not exactly hard.

Characters (NPCs, single player). Skyrim is amazing and I'm enjoying it, it has so many great RPG elements, but when I compare it to Mafia or FF7/8/9 it just isn't as good. For me it is missing characters that actually do things. Skyrim's characters may as-well all be identical clones, they never interact beyond following the player.

How hard would of it been for a NPC to appear in a city, have a quest, then return to a difference city were the NPC would recognise the player and give a different quest? Not that even that is enough. Obviously though the more interactive the NPCs are the more linear it becomes because their actions are all scripted blah blah, which I guess is why skyrim is like that

* Not too much text (it is not a book). The old Might & Magic 3-5 were the best, also Dungeon Master 2 (basicly no text, still you felt the story and the world), Eye of the Beholder 2 (story told via gfx and the map layout).* Storyline (which, again, is not cheaply supplemented by tons of meaningless text that someone lost his cat and you have to help)* Excellent and fast combat system ("workable" is not enough)* Very intuitive & easy to use controls* Not too long to finish (still there could be extras you can reach if you play longer as an option)

The original Dungeon Master is probably one of my all time favorite games. As a side note, one of the EoB is the only non roguelike game that ever made me think: "Ahh!!! Run! Run!"...when I first saw a giant crawling toward me. For any of you crazy kids that don't know Dungeon Master...check out: http://www.dungeon-master.com/

The original Dungeon Master is probably one of my all time favorite games. As a side note, one of the EoB is the only non roguelike game that ever made me think: "Ahh!!! Run! Run!"...when I first saw a giant crawling toward me. For any of you crazy kids that don't know Dungeon Master...check out: http://www.dungeon-master.com/

"There are separate Dungeon Master Java Forums for this game."

BTW, I was thinking for a while of making an oldschool RPG in the style of M&M3 with 90 degree rotation and movement only. I wonder if there would be enough demand for this...

Story line/Plot, Mini/side quests, Rare Items with cool powers. I've played some decent RPGs that didn't have great sound or music.I also think that if you can keep the player involved, for say 50 total hours, until the game is won, you've done a good job.

Story line/Plot, Mini/side quests, Rare Items with cool powers. I've played some decent RPGs that didn't have great sound or music.I also think that if you can keep the player involved, for say 50 total hours, until the game is won, you've done a good job.

I won WoW in a few months. That is, if you define "won" as "got bored of".

The two main themes of rpg games you see today: open world like Skyrim/Fable/(all mmo) where story is not as important as the world and the ability to do anything. Then there is more linear like Mass Effect/Dragon Age NWN where the story is the most important part.

The key to a good rpg I think is the balance between them both. Linearity with the plot continuing always, but still letting the player get to choose what to do.

If you look at Mass Effect, in all the lvls you only have really one path to go onto but they make up for this by letting you go to random planets and having a lot of side quests.

Then you look at Skyrim where the plot is blah but you can do almost anything. Go kill a city. Go exploring and find random dungeons. You have the freedom to do anything.

My all time favorite rpg is Arcanum. Why? Because I have still yet to have found all the ways you can beat that game. It has the absolute most freedom in a game I have ever seen. You can seriously do anything you want. And the lore and world is fantastic. If only they made a second one...

My all time favorite rpg is Arcanum. Why? Because I have still yet to have found all the ways you can beat that game. It has the absolute most freedom in a game I have ever seen. You can seriously do anything you want. And the lore and world is fantastic. If only they made a second one...

I got one addition what is one of the best features for me in games. I don't really know how to call it, it can be for example a house or a castle. A base that is yours, where you can go to after and between your adventures. I just love it to expand this base, or even build it from scratch. I got a few examples where you could do this in games and where i really loved it:Morrowind: You could build and expand a manor, depending on your clan.Bloodmoon Expansion: Even better, you were commanded to build a whole new city, with some freedom how it should look like.Overlord: Your evil tower/castle was being rebuilt during your adventures and you could choose interiors.

Besides that, i love when a game is consequent. With that i mean, your decisions should have impact. I really know not a single game, where i feel like this is the case (for very little parts in the witcher). Take skyrim for example: Whether you help the rebels or the imperials, it doesn't change the world, you see no consequences. Important characters can't die, if something doesn't work out perfectly you can just load a savegame 2 minutes ago. Thats just too soft for me.I think the best decisions are those, where you see the consequences very late (like 10 hours later) and you won't just go back and load everything. There are some games that do this nicely, as i said the witcher at one point, or the old fallout games, where had multiple outcomes for every town depending on what you did there.

Yeah, having a place in the world gives you some real sense of belonging in the world. Permanence is really key to that too: Morrowind was terrific because it never reset cells, so there's a story out there of a guy who stole every spoon he could find in the world and used them to spell out "I AM THE KING OF SPOONS" on the roof of the Under-Skar ... just because he could. You can't do that in Oblivion or Skyrim, your work gets erased after a few days (you can increase the cell reset interval but that causes severe bugs).

A Good RPG gives the player the methods and rewards for playing a role.

For this, Quests and Obstacles MUST be solvable in various ways. Else Its just an adventure with a fixed character with a fixed solution to solve a problem.

Example: Obstacle->Opening a door.

-A Player who wants to impersinate a Tough Strong Warrior might simple want to slam in the door with his strenght or Hammer.-A Player who wants to play a charismatic guy might trick the "door owner" for his key.-A Player who wants to be a classical Thief naturally wants to lockpick it (wich should be hard for others to do...) or pickpocket the key.-A Player playing the a "smart" character might want to build a special device / use a spell to knock open the door.-A Player beeing a Ningja/Assasin type of guy, sneaking though the door behind the guards

Its not required to have a special fixed class. But the player should have to invest time to master a specific playstyle. Beeing able to do thisaction then is the reward for him sticking to this (selfdefined) role.

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